Federal officials said a New Canaan man on Wednesday was sentenced to one year in prison for health care fraud.
The 41-year-old man while working as a sales rep for Hattiesburg, Miss.-based Advantage Pharmacy in 2014 and 2015—and his wife, a hospitalist at Stamford Hospital at the time—“engaged in a scheme to defraud the State of Connecticut Pharmacy Benefit Plan, TRICARE and other health care programs by submitting prescriptions for compound pharmacy medications prepared and dispensed” by the pharmacy, according to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Though the prescriptions included the wife’s signature, she “did not treat, examine, or even meet with the patients for whom the prescriptions were written,” according to the press release, from the DOJ office of the U.S. attorney in Connecticut.
“Based on these false and misleading claims, the victim health care programs paid Advantage Pharmacy for the compound prescription drugs,” the press release said.
Advantage Pharmacy, in turn, paid commissions of between 15 percent to 35 percent to sales representatives, including the arrested man’s cousin.
The couple “also induced the victim health care programs to pay Advantage Pharmacy more than $292,000 for their own compound prescription drugs,” the press release said.
The scheme yielded more than $1.6 million in losses to the victim health care programs, it said.
The man was arrested in June 2018 and found guilty on Feb. 22 of two counts of health care fraud related to fraudulent prescriptions for compound drugs that were submitted to Advantage Pharmacy in March 2015. He was released on $100,000 bond and scheduled to report to prison March 20.
His wife last January had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and was sentenced in June to three months of imprisonment.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David J. Sheldon and Christopher W. Schmeisser.
The government is seeking $1,650,332.35 in restitution.
The arrested couple owns a White Oak Shade Road home, tax records show.